Kufa (Arabic: الكوفة‎ al-Kūfah) is a city in Iraq, about 170 kilometres (110 mi) south of Baghdad, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000.

The Arabs, led by CaliphʻUmar ibn Khattāb, conquered Iraq and begin ruling Suristan around 637. Umar, who assigned the land of the Jews in Arabia to his warriors, ordered the relocation of the Jews of Khaybar to a strip of land in Kufa in 640.[2]

Founded by Saʻd under the directions of Caliph ʻUmar ibn Khattab (637)[edit]

In the 640s, the Kūfan commons agitated that the Caliph ʻUmar's governor was distributing the spoils of war unfairly. In 642 ʻUmar summoned Saʻd to Medina with his accusers. Despite finding Sa'd to be innocent, ʻUmar deposed Saʻd to avert ill feelings.

Uthman in 650 reorganised the Iranian frontier; both Basra and Kufa received new governors (Sa'id ibn al-A'as in Kufa's case), and the east came under Basra's command while north of that remained under Kufa's. The few but noticeable trouble makers in Kufa sought in 654 and had Sa'ed deposed Sa'id and instead showed satisfaction with the return of Abu Musa, which Uthman approved seeking to please all.

Kufa remained a source of instigations albeit from a minority. In 656 when the Egyptian instigators, in co-operation with those in Kufa, marched onto the Caliph Uthman in Medina, Abu Musa counselled the instigators to no avail.

Upon Uthman's assassination by rebels, governor Abu Musa attempted to restore a non-violent atmosphere in Kufa. The Muslims in Medina and elsewhere supported the right of Ali ibn Abu Talib to the caliphate. In order to manage the Military frontiers more efficiently, Ali shifted the capital from Medina to Kufa.

The people of Syria and their Governor, Muawiyah, who seized the Caliphate for himself and his family by using the confusion caused by the assassination of Caliph Uthman and being disturbed by the brutal assassination of the Caliph Uthman, demanded retribution. As Muawiyah mounted his campaign to hold Ali responsible for the murder of Uthman, factions developed. In an already emotionally charged atmosphere, Muawiyah's refusal to give allegiance to Ali as the Caliph without Ali avenging Uthman first eventually, led to war.

Muawiyah appointed Ziyad ibn Abihi as the Governor of Kufa. After the death of Mughirah in Kufa and of Hasan in Medina, some, such as Hujr ibn Adi, who were previously unhappy with Hasan's peace treaty with Muawiyah, now became increasingly noticeable creating a movement of rebellion against yet another Caliph. The new Governor, Ziyad ibn Abihi, was equally firm and up to the challenge posed by the rebels among the Kufans.

Throughout the Umayyad era, as was the case since the inception of the City by Umar ibn Khattab, there were those among Kufa's inhabitants who were rebellious against the ruling Caliph be that Ali himself or an Umayyad Caliph. Kufans turned to Husayn ibn ‘Alī, grandson of the prophet, as their leader after the death of Muawia, but Yazid the self-proclaimed Caliph formed an army which massacred Husayn ibn ‘Alī and his family and companions in the battle of karbala. With a history of assassinations, rebellions were dealt with firmly such as those by Al-Mukhtar (on behalf of Ibn al-Hanifiya). Many Kufans also supported the mutiny of ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Ash‘ath in 699–702 against al-Hajjaj but were defeated by al-Hajjaj. Some say, the Governors of Kufa or Basra, from Ziyad ibn Abihi to his son, Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad, to al-Hajjaj, were understandably firm given the frequent uprisings and assassinations (e.g. of Ali). However, it cannot be denied that al-Hajjaj, and before him, Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad ibn Abihi, were indeed very severe, and even cruel, against the rebels of Kufa especially and of Basra to a lesser extent.

In 749, the Abbasids under al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba took Kufa and made it their capital. In 762, they moved their seat to Baghdad. Under the Umayyad and early Abbasid decades, Kufa's importance gradually shifted from caliphal politics to Islamic theory and practice.

Wael Hallaq notes that by contrast with Medina and to a lesser extent Syria, in Iraq there was no unbroken Muslim or Ishmaelite population dating back to the prophet Muhammad's time. Therefore Maliki (and Azwa'i) appeals to the practice (amal) of the community could not apply. Instead the people of Iraq relied upon those Companions of the Muhammad who settled there, and upon such factions from the Hijaz whom they respected most. A primary founder of a Sunni school of thought, Abu Hanifa, was a Kufan who had supported the Zaydi Revolt in the 730s; and his jurisprudence was systematised and defended against non-Iraqi rivals (starting with Malikism) by other Kufans, such as al-Shaybani.

Additionally, Shi'a Imams like Muhammad al-Baqir and his son Jafar al-Sadiq made decisions from Medina that contributed to the law of Kufa; and to this day Shi‘ite law follows their example. Abu Hanifa too learnt from al-Baqir and especially al-Sadiq. As a result, while Hanafi school is doctrinally Sunni, in practical terms Hanafi law is closer to Imami law than either is to the other schools of jurisprudence i.e. of Malik, Shafi‘i, and Ibn Hanbal[citation needed].

Given Kufa's opposition to Damascus, Kufan traditionists had their own take on Umayyad history. The historian Abu Mikhnaf al-Azdi (d. 774) compiled their accounts into a rival history, which became popular under Abbasid rule. This history does not survive but later historians like Tabari quoted from it extensively.

Kufa is also where the kufic script was developed, the earliest script of the Arabic language. As the scholar al-Qalqashandi maintained, "The Arabic script [khatt] is the one which is now known as Kufic. From it evolved all the present hands." The angular script which later came to be known as Kufic had its origin about a century earlier than the founding of the town of Kufa, according to Moritz in the Encyclopaedia of Islam. The kufic script was derived from one of the four pre-Islamic Arabic scripts, the one called al-Hiri (used in Hira). (The other three were al-Anbari (from Anbar), al-Makki (from Mecca) and al-Madani (from Medina)). The famous author of the Kitab al-Fihrist, an index of Arabic books, Ibn al-Nadim (died ca. 999), was the first to use the word 'kufic' to characterize this script, which reached a state of decorative perfection in the 8th century, when surahs were used to decorate ceramics, for representations of nature were strictly forbidden under the Islamic regime.

In the first decades of Islam, Kufa was prominent in literacy and politics, it was founded before Uthman (whom Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri among others credited with the canonisation of the Qur'an's text), and it was opposed to the central authorities of Medina and Damascus. From the perspective of 8th-century CE (2nd-century AH) Medina and Damascus, Kufa was associated with "variant" readings and interpretations of the Qur'an, typically in the name of Ibn Mas'ud and often (it was claimed) read from the pulpit as if they were part of the Qur'an itself. It became said that Uthman had sent an exemplar of the text to Kufa, but that it was burnt during the wars of Mukhtar and Ibn Zubayr. Al-Hajjaj restored or at any rate promulgated the standard text under Abd al-Malik, castigating even the memory of Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud as "IbnUmmAbd (son of a slave's mother)". But a faction in Kufa preserved the readings "of ‘Abd Allah / Ibn Mas‘ud", whence Mujahid and his fellow mujtahids compiled them along with other readings and interpretations. From there these readings entered the vast repository of Near Eastern hadith, ultimately to be written down into collections of hadith and tafsir.

Kufa began to come under constant attack in the 11th century and eventually shrunk and lost its importance. Over the last century, the population of Kufa has begun to grow again. It continues to be an important pilgrimage site for Shi‘ite Muslims.

Presently, Kufa and Najaf have joined into a single urban area that is mostly commonly known to the outside world simply as Najaf.